Kathleen Richardson is the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at Pacific Lutheran University School of Nursing, a practicing Nurse Practitioner, and a retired Army Nurse Corps Officer. Dr. Richardson’s scholarship, service, and practice focuses on improving patient outcomes through policy, education, and informed clinical practice. These efforts have positively impacted military healthcare (at home and deployed), professional organizations, academia, and civilian clinical practice Dr. Richardson maintains an active clinical practice and her experiences inform her continued advocacy, teaching, and services activities.

While in the military, Dr. Richardson worked to establish outpatient care metrics, remote ICU monitoring, personnel assignment protocols and healthcare recruiting processes. She has authored Bereavement, Pregnancy Loss, and Disclosure policies and co-authored policy addressing Nurse Fatigue, and CNS Utilization. She continues to influence policy through her work with ARNP’s United. As an educator, she has developed innovative curriculum resulting in integration of underserved population care into the BSN, MSN, and DNP curricula. Her research currently focuses on student attitudes toward underserved populations and she is currently working to create a Developmental Nurse Practitioner training program to facilitate lifespan continuity of care for patients aging out of developmental pediatrics.